I Am the Wild (The Night Firm #1)- Karpov Kinrade Page 0,52
memories helped us, even if the memories themselves didn't."
"How so?" Sebastian asks.
"Because he was clearly obsessed with Mary. He could have written those letters. That's why I asked him for the writing sample, just to be sure. He could have killed her in a jealous rage. But unless his memories have been tampered with, he was willing to let us pry into his mind. He probably didn't do it. That's useful information and further narrows our suspect pool, doesn't it?"
He nods. "That's impressive thinking, Eve. And you're right. If his memories haven't been tampered with, then he's most likely eliminated himself as a suspect. Though it doesn't mean he didn't write the letters."
"True. What kind of information can we get about them?" I ask.
"That's Elijah's department. He's got a contact, but they'll only work with him."
Something interrupts my attention, darting past the peripheral of my vision, and I spot the cat I saw earlier, slinking behind a bush. I put a hand on Sebastian's chest to pause him, not taking my eyes off the feline, an idea percolating.
"Those Memory Catcher things. Do they work on animals?"
"They can work on any living thing," Sebastian says. "Except plants. We tried that once. A plant witnessed a murder and we thought we could catch a memory. It… didn't go well."
That sounds like a story for another time, so I press on. "The cat we saw earlier is still here. Which likely means it hangs around the villa a lot. What if we catch its memory and see what it knows?"
Sebastian cocks his head. "That's bloody brilliant. If you keep it still long enough. Cats don't typically like vampires very much."
"Why's that?" I ask, remembering his brother said the same thing when I found Moon.
"Maybe they remember how we fed on them when humans were scarce. Especially during times of plague and famine."
"Ew. Gross." I shift and squat to my knees. "Stay away then. Give me a minute. And give me the memory catcher."
"You don't know how to use it."
"Do I need magic?" I ask.
"No," he says.
I hold out my hand, palm up. "Then I know how to use it."
He sighs and places the crystal in my hand. I wait for him to move away and then creep forward, making clicking sounds with my tongue. "Hey kitty. Come say hi."
The cat peeks out of the bushes and then saunters forward. I hold out my hand and let it come to me. It rubs against my hand, then my arm.
Soon the cat is in my lap purring happily as I scratch its chin and make cooing sounds.
Slowly I set the Memory Catcher in front of it and repeat the word Sebastian used earlier. Once again the crystal glows, then images begin to appear. The perspective of a cat is harder to sift through. They aren't interested in the things we would be, and so I get a lot of small dark spaces and some rats. I whisper "ante" and the images speed up, but still show nothing interesting. As the cat's vision pans another set of feet, I'm about to call it a night when Sebastian steps forward.
"Prohibere!" he says, freezing the memory.
"What is it?" I ask.
He points to the image, which show a pair of feet in expensive shoes. "We've seen Mary's, Leonard's and Dracula's feet so far. These feet don't belong to any of them."
Upon closer inspection I see that he's right, though I hadn't noticed it before. "Then who's feet are they?" I ask.
"I recognize the shoes," Sebastian says, turning his head toward me. "They belong to Liam."
The Confrontation
He that shuts love out, in turn shall be shut out from love, and on her threshold lie, howling in the darkness. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson
I assume we're heading back to the castle, but Sebastian has Lily stop at a pub on the corner with a wooden sign hanging outside that reads "The Naked Dwarf." He opens the door for me and I step into a smoke-filled dark din full of raucous laughter.
The pub itself is decorated in dark wood-paneled walls and black onyx flooring with dim red lighting giving it an eerie vibe. Sebastian finds us a seat in the back corner near the large fire pit that does a decent job of keeping the place warm despite the slightly damp and mildew-smelling seats. It is as private as we can be in such a place.
"I assumed you might be hungry," he says, as he slides into the booth.